“Gentlemen.” Apmad’s voice sluiced down like a bucket of ice water. “Mr. Van Atta, may I remind you that terminations from outlying facilities like Rodeo are discouraged. Not only is GalacTech contractually obligated to provide transportation home to the terminees, but there is also the expense and large time delay of importing their replacements. No, we shall finish it this way. Captain Bannerji shall be suspended for two weeks without pay, and an official reprimand added to his permanent record for carrying an unauthorized weapon on official company duty. The weapon shall be confiscated. Mr. Graf shall be officially reprimanded also, but return immediately to his duties, as there is no one to replace him in them.”
“But I was screwed,” complained Bannerji.
“But I’m totally innocent!” cried Leo. “It’s a fabrication—a paranoid fantasy-—”
“You can’t send Graf back to the Habitat now,” yelped Van Atta. “Next thing you know he’ll be trying to unionize ‘em—”
“Considering the consequences of the Cay Project’s failure,” said the Ops VP coldly, “I think not. Eh, Mr. Graf?”
Leo shivered. “Eh.”
She sighed without satisfaction. “Thank you. This investigation is now complete. Further complaints or appeals by any party may be addressed to GalacTech headquarters on Earth.” If you dare, her quirked eyebrow added. Even Van Atta had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
The mood in the shuttle for the return trip to the Habitat was, to say the least, constrained. Claire, accompanied by one of the Habitat’s infirmary nurses pulled off her downside leave three days early for the duty, huddled in the back clutching Andy. Leo and Van Atta sat as far from each other as the limited space allowed.
Van Atta spoke once to Leo. “I told you so.” “You were right,” Leo replied woodenly. Van Atta nearly purred at the stroke, smug. Leo would rather have stroked him with a pipe wrench.
Could Van Atta be all right, as well? Was his disruptive pressure for instant results a sign of concern for the quaddies’ welfare, even survival? No, Leo decided with a sigh. The only welfare that truly concerned Bruce was his own.
Leo let his head rest on the padded support and stared out his window as the acceleration of takeoff thrust him back in his seat. A shuttle ride was still a bit of a thrill to something deep in him, even after the countless trips he’d made. There were people—billions, the vast majority—who never set foot off their home planets in their lives. He was one of the lucky few.
Lucky to have his job. Lucky in the results he’d achieved, over the years. The vast Morita Deep Space Transfer Station had probably been the crown of his career, the largest project he was ever likely to work on. He’d first viewed the site when it was empty, icy vacuum, as nothing as nothing could possibly be. He’d passed through it again just last year, making a changeover from a ship from Ylla to a ship for Earth. Morita had looked good, really good; alive, even undergoing expansion of its facilities, several years sooner than anyone had expected. Smooth expansion; plans for it had been incorporated into the original designs. Over-ambitious they’d called it then. Far-sighted, they called it now.
And there had been other projects too. Every day, from one end of the wormhole nexus to the other, countless accidents of structural failure did not occur because he, and people he’d trained, had done their jobs well. The work of a harried week, the early detection of the propagating micro-cracks in the reactor coolant lines at the great Beni Ra orbital factory alone had saved, perhaps, three thousand lives. How many surgeons could claim to save three thousand lives in ten years of their careers? On that memorable inspection tour, he’d done it once a month for a year. Invisibly, unsung; disasters that never happen don’t normally make headlines. But he knew, and the men and women who worked alongside him knew, and that was enough.
He regretted slugging Bruce. The moment’s red joy had certainly not been worth risking his job for. The eighteen years of accumulating pension benefits, the stock options, the seniority, yes, maybe; with no family to support, they were all Leo’s, to piss into the wind if he chose. But who would take care of the next Beni Ra?
When they returned to the Habitat, he would cooperate. Apologize handsomely to Bruce. Redouble his training efforts, increase his care. Bite his tongue, speak only when spoken to. Be polite to Dr. Yei. Hell, even do what she told him.
Anything else was impossibly risky. There were a thousand kids up there. So many, so varied—so young. A hundred five-year-olds, a hundred and twenty six-year-olds alone, cramming the creche modules, playing games in their free-fall gym. No one individual could possibly take responsibility for risking all those lives on something chancy. It would be endless, all-consuming. Impossible. Criminal. Insane. Revolt—where could it lead? No one could possibly forsee all the consequences. Leo couldn’t even see around the next corner. No one could. No one.
They docked at the Habitat. Van Atta shooed Claire and Andy and the nurse ahead of him through the hatchway, as Leo slowly unfastened his seat harness.
“Oh, no,” Leo heard Van Atta say. “The nurse will take Andy to the creche. You will return to your old dormitory. Taking that baby downside was criminally irresponsible. It’s clear you are totally unfit to have charge of him. I can guarantee, you’ll be struck from the reproduction roster, too.”
Claire’s weeping was so muffled as to be nearly inaudible.
Leo closed his eyes in pain. “God,” he asked, “why me?”
Releasing his last restraint, he fell blindly into his future.
Chapter 7
“Leo!” Silver anchored one hand and pounded softly and frantically with the other three on the door to the engineer’s sleeping quarters. “Leo, quick! Wake up, help!” She laid her cheek against the cold plastic, muffling her bursting howl to a small, sliding “Leo?” She dared not cry louder, lest she attract more than Leo’s ear.
His door slid open at last. He wore red T-shirt and shorts, barefoot. His sleep sack against the far wall hung open like an empty cocoon, and his thinning sandy hair stuck out in odd directions. “What the hell… Silver?” His face was rumpled with sleep, eyes dark-ringed but focusing fast.
“Come quick, come quick!” Silver hissed, grabbing his hand. “It’s Claire. She tried to go out an airlock. I jammed the controls. She can’t get the outer door open, but I can’t get the inner door open either, and she’s trapped in there. Our supervisor will be back soon, and then I don’t know what they’ll do to us…”
“Son-of-a…” he allowed her to draw him into the corridor, then lurched back into his cabin to grab a tool belt. “All right, go, go, lead on.”
They sped through the maze of the Habitat, offering strained bland smiles to those quaddies and downsiders they flew past in the corridors. At last, the familiar door to “Hydroponics D” closed behind them.
“What happened? How did this happen?” Leo asked her as they brushed through the grow-tubes to the far end of the module.
“They wouldn’t let me go see Claire day before yesterday, when you brought her back on the shuttle, even though we were both in the Infirmary. Yesterday we were on different work teams. I think it was on purpose. Today I made Teddie trade with me.” Silver’s voice smeared with her distress. “Claire said they won’t even let her into the creche to see Andy on her off-shift. I went to get fertilizer from –Stores to charge the grow-tubes we were working on, and when I came back, the lock was just starting to cycle.…” If only she hadn’t left Claire alone—if only she had not let the shuttle take them downside in the first place—if only she had not betrayed them to Dr. Yei’s drugs—if only they’d been born downsiders—or not been born at all.…